


'Quo Vadis'

by OldProf1942



Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:54:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28800906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldProf1942/pseuds/OldProf1942
Summary: This promo!  This conundrum!  This curse!  I know not why I even try.  Oh well.  Once more into the breech.  This is the last attempt.
Relationships: Camille Bordey/Richard Poole
Comments: 19
Kudos: 6





	'Quo Vadis'

**Author's Note:**

> That promo of Richard coming down the beach, the S10 cameo, has done its job. What will his appearance mean? This is my third and last fantasized version. I surrender.

‘Quo Vadis’  
‘Whither goest thou’  
What does that promo mean?  
**********  
They were all gone. Good. Maybe now her head would stop throbbing. DI Parker and DS Cassell were on their way to Port Royal and the new Saint Marie Station. The cleaning crew had made the shack as ‘shipshape’, as possible. Why was she still here? Damn! Short term memory. Doc said it would be a nuisance for a while, but it would all come back.  
Yes. Yes, …… memory. The Commissioner said she should take a fortnight and get everything back together. But the thought of her mother running upstairs from the bistro every fifteen minutes to check on her ‘bebe’, her ‘petite fille’. No, no, no! Work would be good for her. Help her focus and get back to normal. Get all the puzzle pieces back in order. ‘Mon Dieu’, she hated this lack of control.  
Think, think, think, slowly, one step at a time. Memory, Lilly. …. Yes, DS Lily Thomson. She had killed DI Charlie Hulme……….. Yes, I broke the case; I cracked the conundrum……….. The two guns……….. The two books………. Ha! Yes. She tried to get away. Just as I caught up to her, she laid that huge vase right on top of my head. Lights out!  
Massive concussion. Three-day induced coma. No brain swelling. Clean MRI. Doc said time would take care of the fuzzies.  
I’m still here at the shack. I’ve got a Jeep. Why? What now? There must be something else for me to do. Oh no, if I have forgotten something important the Commissioner will have me on medical leave in an instant. But what? 

She looked to the shack; Harry, the little green lizard was perched on the railing. His head swiveled to look up the beach. Camille turned to follow his gaze. A figure was coming out of the heat shimmer and glare. Yes, the new Chief Inspector. She was supposed to get him settled in and then take him to the Honore Station. Yes, the old memory bank still worked.  
The approaching man came into focus. Camille froze. NO! Doc didn’t say anything about hallucinations. The figure smiled and offered a brief belt high wave.  
“Richard?” The word sprung from Camille’s mouth unbidden. The image drew closer.  
“DS Bordey?” Richard switched his briefcase to his left hand and extended his right toward his new detective sergeant.  
Camille lurched forward and poked Richard in the chest over his heart. “You are dead! YOU... ARE... DEAD!” With each word she poked his chest harder.  
Eyes wide with surprise Richard pronounced: “Sergeant, I am quite alive, thank you. And have been so for forty-two years. And why are you prodding my chest so…….. ”  
“No,…No, …. I saw you. She drove an icepick into your heart!” Camille clutched his shirt with both hands and in one violent motion tore it open. Richard’s eyes once more widened in shock. Her hands ran over his chest. It was smooth, almost hairless, firm, more muscular than she had imagined. No wound, no scar, no sign of the autopsy incisions and stitches. “You were dead, you were nearly as grey as the slab you were on. You were so cold when I kissed you goodbye.” Suddenly Camille grabbed the new Chief Inspector and planted a passionate, desperate, smothering kiss that brought another eye-popping response from Richard.  
“Sergeant, Detective Sergeant, Miss Bordey, Camille, please! This sort of behavior is most inappropriate. Most unprofessional. And look what you’ve done to my only shirt. What a day, what a bloody awful day." They stood and stared at each other for a full minute. “Sergeant, might we move into the shade, please.”  
“Yes sir.”  
“Thankyou.”  
**********  
“Are you sure that you’re real? I worked with you for two years and and and……..”  
“Sergeant Bordey there is a slimy green thing on the railing.”  
“That’s Harry, he’s a lizard and they’re not slimy, Sir. Harry lives here.”  
“I have a lizard for a flatmate?”  
“Well, sir, your more his roommate. He lives in the tree.”  
“Which tree?”  
“Come with me.”  
**********  
“Sergeant, there is a tree growing up through the middle of the floor and out through the roof.”  
Leaning back against the small bureau near the bed. Richard exhaled and moaned: “The flight was late,….. they lost my luggage,….. the taxi dropped me at the wrong address,….. I had to walk a mile through Dante’s latest sand searing, hellish heat. To have my only shirt torn to shreds,….. my new DS is having a breakdown,….. and I’m billeted with a reptile.”  
Following a long pause Richard continued: “Detective Sergeant Bordey, ….. Camille. I have an extensive dossier on you. You are a university graduate, intelligent, multiple commendations and awards. You’ve been wounded twice by gunfire. You have just passed your DI exam with highest honors. And you are quite possible the most beautiful woman I have ever encountered………….. Oh, and you’ve kissed me in a most alarming manner.”  
“Why are you alive? How did you survive? Why are you here? Why am I so confused?” Camille’s emotions ran from a sense of helplessness and sorrow to rage and frustration. “If you just got here, how, do I know you? Why do I have a two year history, ….. with you. Why do I love you soooo……”  
“Sergeant Bordey, think logically. Just like a crime investigation. Let me propose a hypothesis. You were not in a deep coma, but under heavy sedation. In that state you might have heard parts of various conversations held between your colleagues and the Commissioner. My anticipated arrival, a bit of my history and various shared anecdotes about you and work and other cases. It is a quite normal human reaction to try and make order out of chaos. Thus, the detective in you created a narrative that reduced the incomprehensible to a semblance of logic. Knowing that I was coming to take charge of the newly expanded Saint Marie police force, made me seem like a ‘knight in shining amour’, come to save ‘fair maiden’ from a foul fate. So maybe you attached a romantic aura to the entire scenario.”  
“Yes. Yes, that makes sense. A great deal of sense. Thank you. Now, ah, well, let’s get you a new shirt. I have a jeep and can run into town and get you something decent.”   
Camille reached up and pulled Richard’s jacket from his shoulders.  
“Sergeant.”  
“Stand still. I have to see what size shirt you wear.” Removing the remnants of his shirt she looked at the collar and nodded. “There I’ve got neck size and sleeve length.” Gazing at his now naked torso, she observed: “You’re more trim and fit than that dumpy suit would suggest.” She ran her hand over his chest.  
Richard swallowed hard, gasped, and quietly muttered: “I, …. I try to row every day when I can, you know, ah fit, ah fit, it into my, my schedule. When I have a, you YOU! Why are you removing my trousers?”  
“I need to know your waist and inseam, so I can pickup something lighter, more appropriate for the heat, n’est-ce pas?” With his trousers about his ankles, she commanded: “Step out, please.” He complied. “Oh ‘non, non, non’, some sandals or deck shoes. Oui?” She pulled his shoes and socks violently from his feet. Pointing at his underwear she exclaimed: “Tartans?” He nodded silently. She continued: “In my coma, dream, hallucination, I called them plaid and you corrected me.”  
“I did?”  
“Oui. We were searching a suspect’s luggage during one of my imagined cases.”  
“Oh, yes, of course.”  
She reached up with one hand and pulled him to her hungry mouth. This time his eyes closed and his statue like body relaxed into a human response. His hands came to her shoulders and he pulled her to him. His palms slid down her now naked back. His eyes once again sprung open as his fingers coursed down her back to Camille’s now naked hips and nether regions. As he gasped and grasped this reality, his boxers suddenly were at his ankles. His mind reeled as he and she plunged onto the bed.  
Harry watched. He scampered up his tree. His mate! Lizards had needs too!

  
Camille and Richard, two more captives of the magic of paradise.


End file.
